Clutching book bags for his kids as they prepared to start school, Gregory Laurence walked out of Dr. Martin Luther King Community Service Center Monday afternoon.
He was standing outside for a few minutes when a car drove by, and someone inside fired shots near the community center and Judge Slater Apartments, a Chicago Housing Authority senior apartment complex across the street at 740 E. 43rd St.
“They were just shooting at all old people. I don’t know what’s going on,” Laurence, 39, told the Sun-Times in a phone call Tuesday afternoon from his hospital bed. “The ladies couldn’t even run, and they still were shooting at them.”
Officers who rushed to the scene of the 3:30 p.m. drive-by found two gunshot victims on the ground: a 74-year-old woman and a 35-year-old man, while several other victims were able to run for cover, according to a police report.
The man was “bleeding out” from a gunshot wound to his left arm, while the woman was slipping “in and out of consciousness” and was “losing a lot of blood,” from a gunshot wound to her right leg, the report said.
Several police officers placed tourniquets on their wounds, staunching the bleeding, until paramedics got there and took them to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where the 74-year-old was in serious condition and the 35-year-old was in good condition.
Meanwhile, the black Honda fled eastbound on East 43rd Street after the shooting, the report said.
Laurence, who was struck in his arm by a bullet, was shocked.
“I end up hit in the arm,” Laurence said. “I was like, ‘I don’t even know what to do besides hold my arm and run.’”
He was listed in good condition also at University of Chicago Medical Center, where he remained Tuesday. Laurence, a maintenance worker, said doctors told him his recovery could take months, and he worried about losing the ability to do his job properly because of his injury.
The other victims — a 72-year-old woman shot in her left shoulder and a 44-year-old man shot in his right foot — were also taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where they were good condition.
The two women in their 70s live at the Judge Slater Apartments, residents told the Sun-Times.
Their neighbor, Angelis Anderson, 64, has lived on the 10th floor for about two years and said she heard gunshot blasts. She said many residents spend time outside to get fresh air, but she doesn’t leave her apartment much.
“That’s terrible,” she said. “I don’t sit out here myself because it’s too wide open.”
Another woman who lives in the building and declined to give her name said she was outside at the time and didn’t see the shooting but heard shots.
“We was just checking to see if everyone was OK; it was like an adrenaline rush,” she said.
She said she would like to see more police in the neighborhood to prevent other shootings and violent crime. Sandie Norman, a pastor and violence prevention activist, came to the scene Tuesday to check on residents.
“You have seniors that have been shot. Where’s the outcry?” she demanded. “We need to have a police car out here and detail because we don’t know if this will happen again.”
While some in the area are anxious, Anderson said the shooting didn’t rattle her much and she still feels safe.
“I’m feeling OK ’cause I’m going right back in the house,” she said on her way inside. “There’s no place like home.”